After 12-14, George Hochsprung clings to his optimism

Eileen FitzGerald

Updated 3:47 pm, Friday, February 1, 2013

George Hochsprung, husband of Dawn Hochsprung, the Sandy Hook Elementary School principal who was killed in the school shooting last month, is retiring from Rogers Park Middle School after serving 40 years in the Danbury school system.
Photo: Jason Rearick

George Hochsprung, husband of Dawn Hochsprung, the Sandy Hook Elementary School principal who was killed in the school shooting last month, is retiring from Rogers Park Middle School after serving 40 years in the Danbury school system. The cross on the right was left at the doorstep of his condo by an unknown well-wisher.
Photo: Jason Rearick

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On Wednesday, George Hochsprung picked up the phone in his Woodbury home to hear the voice of a student he taught about 26 years ago.

The 36-year-old woman said that as a fifth-grader, she never forgot how he ran after her in the parking lot as she left school because of some trouble she was in. "She said, `You told me you believed in me,' " Hochsprung said. She was among hundreds of students he's taught in his 40-year career as an educator who have offered him condolences for the death of his wife, Dawn Hochsprung.

His wife of 10 years was killed Dec. 14 during a deadly shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown. It appears Dawn Hochsprung, the principal at the school, tried to halt the gunman, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, who had blasted his way through the glass doors and into the building. Lanza killed her, five other adults and 20 first-graders that day.

Hochsprung shook his head in amazement at the call and how it demonstrated a teacher's reach beyond the classroom.

"I'm so thankful I was a teacher," he said during an interview in the Woodbury home he shared with his wife and their black standard poodle, Bella. "I realize teachers are so important. People don't forget."

But, after teaching for 40 years in half a dozen Danbury schools from third to eighth grade, from math, science and social studies classes to a renowned gifted program, Hochsprung will retire Feb. 1.

He hasn't returned to the classroom since his wife died.

"I can't go back to school," Hochsprung said. "I've always been enthusiastic about teaching, and I wanted to leave at the top of my game. But I'm not the same person. I've decided not to go back."

Instead, he's nearly moved completely out of their condo and into the house he and his wife built last year on a lake in the Adirondacks, where Dawn had installed bunk beds for their 11 grandchildren. The move accelerates a path he and his wife had made for their future.

They had sold their condominium and beloved 38-foot Catalina sailboat to pay for the new house, and they had moved into a smaller condo.

Dawn had begun a two-year doctoral program at Russell Sage College in New York. After she was done, the two planned to move to the lake. Dawn would become a superintendent and Hochsprung would teach nearby for a while.

"We built it as our dream," he said. "I don't know if it can be my dream."

THE `HEARTBEAT' OF THE SCHOOL

Hochsprung started teaching when he was about 30 after working first as a chemist. He loved the diversity of the Danbury student population, which now includes more than 40 ethnicities.

"He was just the most amazing teacher and crazy in the most wondrous respects," NeJame said Monday. "It's just too bad that he is retiring, though I understand completely. I just think of all the students and teachers who have been impacted by him."

Once, NeJame remembered, Hochsprung was teaching his class about the colonial times, so he had students weave sheep's wool. She was the art teacher and helped his class dye the wool using native fruits like poke berries.

"He was the heartbeat of South Street School and my foundation for teaching and education," NeJame said. "He's a brilliant educator. He would plant seeds of curiosity in kids and a passion for learning."

"He was absolutely fantastic,'' Slabicky said. "He was always there for the students. His class was open. There were computers and robots. He had everything. For the three years, I had him in class in middle school, I learned everything from him."

Hochsprung was Danbury's 2008 Teacher of the Year.

Superintendent Sal Pascarella said Hochsprung's departure is a huge loss not just to students but to teachers, for whom he is a leader, and to the district, for which he is such an ambassador.

"We can't replace George. We will fill his position, but not replace him," Pascarella said. "He is a marvelous, marvelous educator."

LIVING THE DREAM

Hochsprung was teaching the gifted program at Rogers Park Middle School in the late 1990s when Dawn Lafferty became an assistant principal there. They became friends because she was such a great educator, he said.

At first he wanted to show her what he was doing in class, but then he knew it was more.

"Dawn and I were very much kindred spirits. I would come up with the ideas and she would come up with the implemental process. She would sell it," he said.

Among the few things left in the condo are two paintings of clipper ships. The couple's sailing pictures are already on the walls of the house in the Adirondacks.

On their first date, he surprised Dawn, driving her to Bridgeport to take the ferry to Port Jefferson, N.Y., where they had dinner. Along the way, he pointed to the sailboats dotting the water and told her that was a dream of his, to have a boat.

They married on a big sailboat in Mystic seaport, began sailing classes, and then owned three boats over the years.

Eight years ago, as they sailed across the Long Island Sound, they saw the ferry coming in the opposite direction, he recalled.

"It was so poignant. I was living my dream, and I wondered who was looking at me and saying, `That is my dream,' " Hochsprung said.

"Dawn would be on the helm and I would manage the sails. For 10 years, we sailed up and down the Sound, from Nantucket to New York City," he said. "It became our passion for a long time."

While spending many weekends and summers sailing and most recently traveling to their new house in the works in the Adirondacks, the couple would try to return Sundays in time to attend dancing classes in Torrington, followed by dinner.

"The question to myself is what do I do now. I want to be someone to help spread the word, not just be sad about this. There has to be something good. We lost 26 people in this terrible act," he said. "How do we make the world a better place."

`I HOPE I DIDN'T FAIL'

On the day of Dawn Hochsprung's wake, her husband greeted people from 2 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. When children came through the receiving line, he would crouch down to their level and tell them it was OK to be sad but to find something good to take away, too.

He said a phone call from his attorney, James Wu, of Danbury, helped a lot.

"He helped me see that the glass is half full,'' Hochsprung said. "He said, `You've had a great run. You and Dawn have had a great run.' "

At first Hochsprung said it sounded harsh, but Wu helped him appreciate what a wonderful life he's had: a career he loved, the sailboat he wanted, a family he treasures and his time with Dawn.

He's been rereading the daily sailing log the couple kept in which Dawn wrote poetry as well as details about the day. And he's reviewing a journal they both decided to keep when they married and began navigating the sometimes tough merging of their blended families.

"We worried that things could fester and that sometimes the spoken word fails," he said. "We wrote to each other to resolve issues."

This past Wednesday, he drove down from the Adirondacks early in the morning, talking to Dawn for the three and a half hour trip.

"She didn't answer me back," he said, which he thinks means he isn't crazy yet. "I talked to Dawn about how much I loved her. I tried. I hope I didn't fail."

He holds on to a brighter view. Still.

He plans to go to school to say goodbye to the teachers and to the students in the coming days.

"I'm looking for some way to say thank you for all the good that has happened to me in the past few weeks, the compassion from just everyday people, the letters from students of 22 years ago," Hochsprung said.

His family will gather again in the beginning of next month. One of their daughters will marry on the lawn of their new house in the summer.

He recalled how with one phone call, his daughter Anne, her husband and their two children were flown back and forth from England to be with him.

When they reached the airport for their return flight, they accepted an overnight stay because the flight was overbooked. When they returned the next day to board, they were upgraded to first class because someone had noted they among the Sandy Hook families.

"All of a sudden the glass is half full again," he said. "I'm starting to find meaning. That is important."